Wedding Bands

[mhackney]

Believe it or not, a friend of mine and his bride-to-be asked me to print their wedding bands! They also wanted the bands blue, and my blue ABS was the perfect shade. So, I drew up some nice simple and thin/narrow bands as per their request. I relieved the outer edge with a 1mm radius and the inner with a .3mm radius so it would slip on the finger easily and not snag on things. Plus, it gives the ring a nice professional look I was also able to print in 1/4 sizes rather than the full sizes, so the couple can pick rings that fit perfectly. Once they have their sizes locked in, I'll print a dozen or so of each so they have spares - maybe in different colors too.

I have to say that I feel like I am really "getting" 3D printing! It took 7 minutes to draw the rings in CAD, 6 different sizes (ViaCAD) and export to STL, 2 minutes in netfabb to clean up the STL and then 1 minute in Slicr to create the gcode. I used 3 perimeters and 100% fill but the rings are so thin that there is only 1 perimeter and they are hollow. I am going to experiment with trying to fill the hollow but they are remarkably strong. It took 3 tries printing with a few temperature tweaks and the final results were very nice.

You can see the hollow in this photo - about 1/2 done:

[img]http://mhackney.zenfolio.com/img/s1/v48 ... 4780-3.jpg[/img]

Finished set of rings look very nice:

[img]http://mhackney.zenfolio.com/img/s2/v51 ... 3183-3.jpg[/img]

And one on my finger for testing:

[img]http://mhackney.zenfolio.com/img/s3/v43 ... 8100-3.jpg[/img]

And here is a short video printing these:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIrmACdEJDo[/youtube]


Cheers,
Michael

[JTCUSTOMS]

Thats pretty cool Michael!
Good to see you are still hard at it, how is the job search going?
Been very busy as of late, but have been sneaking out to the shop late and printing away.
I have been using the new seemecnc 3mm hotend and have almost a full spool of 1.75 abs through it with not one plug or jam up.
Working on printing all the parts for a mendelmax for a close friend.
All in all I am very satisfied with the print quality, I am still having "issues" with bridging though. Nothing major as the parts are more than usual but not "perfect" nonetheless.
Now off to order some more filament!!

[drew]

What do you have to do to run 1.75 filament through a 3mm hotend? Is there an adapter tube or something?

Drew

[johnoly99]

Hey guys, John here. If you have our 3mm hotend, here's what you can do. Take a piece of the 2mm ID teflon that is 4mm OD, and lightly lube it will say veggie oil? Heat up the 4mm OD tube that is used with the 3mm hot ends, and slide the 4mm OD tube from the 1.75mm hotend inside it. You can now use either or size of filament. Bvandiepenboss is using a similar ezperimental nozzle and hotend setup on his machine, and if you've seen his prints, they look pretty good!

[JTCUSTOMS]

Same as what John said, but I just spit on it and it slid right in, no heating of the larger teflon just cut it the same length.
I have quite a few prints now for friends and family, as well as
half a mendelmax printed out.
I do have a bit of ooze with the 1.75, with a retract set to 3 it is minimized, but the new nozzles appear to have a larger melt zone, maybe the smaller diameter filament doesnt create enough "pull" when retracted to make any difference?
I just wanted to really test it before I posted, 1 roll of black abs through it no prob.
Tried to squirt some glow in the dark but it was nasty, fresh out of the sealed bag it was just not working very well?
Ordered some more filament yesterday and am placing an order with SEEMECNC tonight for some new nozzle sizes and such

PS I will post more pics of the machine and prints soon in my build thread

[bvandiepenbos]

Nice work on the rings.
I really like to see people making useful objects.

[mhackney]

Thanks guys. The rings were a hit with the couple.

Job search is moving along well also. Should close on an offer next week. Meanwhile, between printing I've been updating my shop and updating my CNC'd G0704 mill in preparation of filling an order for some custom fly fishing reels for a rod maker. He wants a private label reel and I've developed a process to engrave his logo and color fill it with powder paint. Here's a photo:

[img]http://mhackney.zenfolio.com/img/s3/v44 ... 3934-3.jpg[/img]

It really turned out nice and takes my reelmaking to a new level. I've also developed the CAD and STL files for a fully printed fishing reel! That will be very cool - and useful.

cheers,
Michael

[johnoly99]

Man, that's a sweet looking reel. I love the trout logo. Are you cnc'ing that out of the plate? Or ?

[kilroyo]

That's pretty cool with the wedding bands. I don't wear one because of my job. But being able to print one out of plastic. Hum might have to give that a try

[mhackney]

The bands are try light weight and won't electrocute you! The also will rip off without taking your finger off. AND they are styl'n!

John, those side plates are CNC machined on my mill. The backside is pocketed. I then turn it on the lathe to get that little detail with a custom form tool I made. Then I engrave the logo on the mill with a high speed spindle. There will be text script too. Only the logo is color filled. That's the tricky part. Took several weeks of experimentation to work out a good technique. I use powder paint. It comes in lots of colors and it is almost impervious once baked in.

[mhackney]

My friends were married today and here is a photo they took of their wedding bands.

http://mhackney.zenfolio.com/img/s2/v51 ... 3532-3.jpg

My job is done!

cheers,
Michael

[johnoly99]

Mike, due to the extreme awesomeness!, would your friends mind if we used that picture? Maybe a congrats on our website,with that picture of their printed rings?

[mhackney]

John, I just got off the phone with Chris and he said that would be cool. So, feel free to use the photo and maybe something like "Congratulations Chrissy and Chris". They were actually married on Saturday 6/9/2012.

Cheers,
Michael

[johnoly99]

Check the updates on the campaign

[mhackney]

Cool! My friends like it!

cheers,
Michael